"Even as pioneering scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs apply their genius and industry to overcoming some of our most serious problems, there are institutions, interests, and individuals hard at work to thwart this breakout. Their power and comfort are often bound up with the status quo. They are willing to forgo the breakout, to keep us prisoners of the past, in order to cling to the privileges that the old order has bestowed on them. And they will succeed if we let them."